The Fog of Journalism: Why Rolling Stone and Co. Are Wrong

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Suddenly everybody's an expert in counterinsurgency. Now everybody, and not just the army insiders, calls it COIN. The burst of outsider wisdom was sparked by Rolling Stone's scoop on General Stanley McChrystal, a triumph of reporting that was strangely clueless on the subject at the center of McChrystal's life. Michael Hastings calls McChrystal and his men "COINdinistas" who display "cultish zeal." He describes counterinsurgency as "the new gospel of the Pentagon brass, a doctrine that attempts to square the military's preference for high-tech violence with the demands of fighting protracted wars in failed states." He says that COIN "rebrands the military, expanding its authority (and its funding) to encompass the diplomatic and political sides of warfare: think the Green Berets as an armed Peace Corps." He says that COIN "puts us at the mercy of every tin-pot leader we've backed," quotes an anonymous soldier who says he wants to kick McChrystal in the nuts because "his rules of engagement puts soldiers' lives in even greater danger," says that COIN "bizarrely, draws its inspiration from some of the biggest Western military embarrassments in recent memory," Algeria and Vietnam, and sums it all up with a quote from a retired colonel named Douglas Macgregor: "The idea that we're going to spend a trillion dollars to reshape the culture of the Islamic world is utter nonsense."

Every word of this is wrong or unfair or both. Counterinsurgency has been around since ancient Rome, and its techniques have been used by every occupying army in history. In modern times, its most famous proponent was B.H. Liddell Hart, who based his analysis on a study of the British counterinsurgency in Malaysia. To the extent the modern version was inspired by Vietnam and Algeria, it is because military strategists were trying to correct the mistakes made in those countries. In Vietnam, especially, we barely gave counterinsurgency a chance, switching to full-on hot war in 1963. That's what COIN is intended to avoid. At the time, it was a liberal idea — hearts and minds. Remember?

To suggest that the Army has a hard-on for counterinsurgency because it's high-tech or because it includes diplomacy and politics and the money that goes with them is not only vile, it makes no sense. There's nothing high-tech about building schools and training police officers, and generals always have to get involved in diplomacy and local politics. (And actually, the Green Berets did function as an armed Peace Corps when they worked up in the highlands of Vietnam trying to keep the Montagnard tribesmen on South Vietnam's side.)

As to that disgruntled soldier, I'm shocked at Rolling Stone. The argument that "politicians want us to fight with one hand tied behind our back" is exactly what the most obnoxious warmongers have said throughout history. Remember "kill 'em all and let God sort out the difference?" It's the argument that rogue cops use when they try to justify brutality. I'm not one to attack soldiers who lose their cool under battlefield conditions, but forgiving the inevitable excesses is a lot different than saying go ahead and kill anything that moves.

Finally, there's that absurd quote about reshaping the culture of the Islamic world. Afghanistan is not the entire Islamic world, and we're not trying to "reshape" Islam. The fantasies of Christopher Hitchens have nothing to do with real American strategy in the Middle East or the friendships we maintain with Islamic countries like Egypt and Indonesia.

In the wake of the Rolling Stone story, everyone who hates the war has piled on. In the Washington Post, Andrew Bacevich warns that "long wars are antithetical to democracy" because soldiers become insular and develop contempt for the supposedly soft civilian leaders. In The New York Times, Frank Rich says that the contempt McChrystal expressed for civilian leaders suggests that McChrystal himself doesn't really believe in counterinsurgency. CitingRolling Stone's story about Karzai keeping McChrystal waiting while he takes a nap, Rich asks Obama to explain why "American blood and treasure should be at the mercy of this napping Afghan president."

The irony is that a good liberal like Frank Rich — and I'm a big fan of his, so this isn't a slag against him or against liberals either — is actually taking the side of old-school Ugly America. We want Karzai to behave himself. We think he's a "tin-pot" dictator, in Hastings's words. But it occurs to none of them that Karzai might be trying to take McChrystal down a peg to assert his own power in a country where the perception of power means the difference between life and death. This contempt for the motives of foreigners also appears in the fear that Karzai is trying to sell us out by making peace with the Taliban behind our backs — God forbid he figure out how to survive when America has other ideas.

We always want a strong leader who will do exactly what we tell him to do, and we're so righteous we never seem to see the contradiction.

Clear thinking on Afghanistan requires us to answer a single question. What is the American national interest? If it is overwhelming, a nuclear bomb in downtown Topeka, then there's no question what we will do.

In order to answer this question, we need to get rid of the ridiculous bullshit people repeat without thinking. I was shocked to see Joe Klein say that our purpose is to make sure there's "no safe haven for international terrorists there." If that's the case, we should invade Pakistan and Somalia. And Iran. And Syria. And Gaza.

We're in Afghanistan because we're trying to influence Pakistan without a war. Because we don't want to look weak and run away with our tails between our legs, not because it's a pride thing but because Iran is watching and if they are emboldened by American fecklessness, it increases their willingness to provoke Israel, which could lead to lots and lots of deadRolling Stone readers. Because of domestic politics, where Obama can't afford to look weak because that could lead to another Republican victory which would dramatically increase the chances of another war of choice — and anyone who dismisses that possibility can share a cell in hell with Ralph Nader. And because of oil, which you can dismiss if you don't care about heating your house or getting to work or eating.

Is there a chance of "winning" in Afghanistan? Sure. Karzai or Pakistan or Petraeus could surprise us with a peace agreement tomorrow. Or we could spend ten years there and get some rough semblance of stability, which would be a win even if though it won't look like a liberal democracy-again, our deliberately naïve rhetoric is the enemy of clarity. Maybe Bush was fighting for democracy, but Obama is not that much of a fool.

That said, is Afghanistan worth the cost?

That's a tough one. But there's only one honest answer, we don't know. We can't possibly know until it's over.

But is it worth another couple of years to find out? Another decade? Another thousand lives?

That's a much harder question. If I were president, I think I'd keep at it another year or two. That would give peace a chance, at least. But without access to military intelligence and diplomatic secrets, I'm going to trust Obama to make the decision — for now.